Final Nail in the coffin. Top
Hello everyone, while I would like to say "This guide has been fully reworked to better mesh with the new playstyle of the hero" I can't.
I had slowly been editing the guide in my off time, but never published the results, as I just couldn't bring myself to do so since I wanted things to be good. That being said, this isn't about my lack of work ethic, this is about a very serious subject.
Recently (As of the time of writing this passage, around 8 hours) a lot of information about Blizzard has come forward, including a legitimate lawsuit towards the company. While this may or may not break terms of service for the website itself, I'm still bringing this up at this portion, so you see it first.
Due to everything I've read, and the claims very much being fact checked and in a lot of cases, confirmed, I've decided to fully distance myself from Blizzard and All Acti-Blizz products. This includes this website. This is in a protest of the company, and not the game itself. I've been around HotS since the start. I got to enjoy the alpha, and I played so much during the beta and even 1.0...I've seen through the downsizing of the HotS team, taken to work on a project that didn't have a timeframe of the team working on it. I saw through a lot of the changes the game has gone through, including my fun experience with the launch of 2.0...and while I've done my part to enjoy this game, and play with friends over the years, I'm breaking away.
No matter how you currently feel on this whole situation, remember, HotS has been a game I can always come back to when I just wanted to play a round or two, and while I wish I could continue to support it...I can't bring myself to support a company I no longer feel the same way Morally towards. This guide was something I made out of love for a game made by a company I had a lot of respect for.
If you still wish to support the game, nobody would think lesser of you. If you still want to support the people who work in the company who WEREN'T involved in all of this...that's perfectly fine too. I love each and everyone of you who's read this guide over the years. From the very first people who called it a "Ranked Viable Guide" to those friends I got to meet through just a shared love for the hero.
Rock on Soldiers of Akarat! If you wanna chat with me on Discord, hit me up at GlassJoe#0418.
-Kalcour
Introduction Top
GREETINGS fellow crusaders. My name is Kalcour, and I have been playing HotS since 2014 in it's alpha stages. During that time I had picked up a ma-WAIT that's not why you're here. You're here to learn how to play Johanna. Before we get to that we need to go over a few things.
1) This guide was conceived around the time when Johanna when released and it gained quite a bit of traction. Back then, there was no quest system, instead it was just me trying to stack HP regen for fun, and somehow it kept working, and working, and working. So I decided to write a guide about it and share it with the world.
2) This guide was NOT intended to be used in Ranked, but over time it seems like people had begun to do so...and they were winning. The main reason (At least from my own experience) is due to the introduction of the quest system and the reward from the old Regeneration Master Talent giving a LOT of health.
3) Johanna IS my most played hero, and I have over 3 years of experience playing her. I know how to play her in both competitive and how to meme with her. This guide is built out of love, NOT out of wanting to win. Trust me, there are MUCH less meme-y guides out there.
With that out of the way, let's move on.
The Basic Overview Top
So, here's a basic overview for Johanna.
YOU are a Melee Warrior from the Diablo Series and a fairly accurate representation of my second favorite class, The Crusader from Diablo 3.
You have very good self sustain through talents, large amounts of CC (All abilities in your kit provide it), as well as a very potent shield that provides you with immunity to CC yourself.
Your Abilities are as follows.
Iron Skin provides you with a shield equal to approximately 8-10% of your maximum HP based on level while also providing you with the Unstoppable status, causing you to become immune to ALL forms of CC for up to 4 seconds. It can be activated before you're CC'd in order to deny the attacker, but CAN NOT be used during CC. (Learn from my mistakes)
Punish is a small damage AoE that hits all targets directly in front of you, while also providing a 20% slow on all enemies hit. This also counts for Neutral camps, and let me tell you, it works. Use it to slow enemies to combo it with your W...
Condemn charges an area around Johanna for 1 second before unleashing it, drawing enemies a fixed distance TOWARDS Johanna. Where this ability is good is that the pull cancels channeled abilities, so use it on Lili when she's ulting. It can also be used in order to stop an enemy attack long enough for your Iron Skin to come off cooldown.
Shield Glare is a cone AoE blind that hits all enemy units, blinding them for up to 2 seconds, can be used to disrupt that Vall or Tychus when they're REALLY going heavy. It's got a short enough cooldown, so spam it in lane.
HEROICS (Will not be referring to them in the Talent section)
Falling Sword causes Johanna to launch into the air, become unstoppable and can be moved for her base movement speed, after two seconds hitting the ground so hard she throws her enemies into the air, dealing damage and knocking them up for .5 seconds. Remember this ability can be redirected in the air in order to better position yourself. Use as either an engage or disengage if you really need it.
I guess blessed shield is also an ability that can be thrown in a line dealing a small amount of damage and stunning up to 3 units, the first hit for 1.5 seconds, the others for .75. I refuse to acknowledge its usefulness.
TALENTS Top
This section may go quick, so bare with me. Here's a quick overview, any talent that has a line through it, IGNORE IT, any other talent...Don't ignore it?
Level 1
Reinforce gives you block stack each time you use an ability using one of the charges you can store up, holding up to two. This armor is used to block the damage from a single basic attack. Useful for dealing with those pesky damage dealing carries.
Hold Your Ground increases your Iron Skin's strength by 30% making it more potent, and lowering it's cooldown by 4 seconds, but ONLY if the shield is BROKEN by your enemies. It's useful, but....
Laws of Hope adds an activate-able ability that provides you with a decent amount of health regeneration. As well as passive regeneration...but since they nerfed it it's not really worth mentioning. Good in a pinch to keep you alive.
Level 4
Eternal Retaliation lowers the cooldown of Condemn by .5 seconds and refunds 2.5 mana per enemy hit, up to 10 total enemies. Not really worth it, but has some uses.
Conviction increases the movement speed you gain while using Condemn, increasing the speed by 25% as it's charging up. CHASE THE NON-BELIEVERS!
Sins Exposed is a worthless *** talent...don't bother with it...but I suppose that I could tell you that it increases the basic attack damage Johanna does to enemies after hitting them with Shield Glare. Good early game...falls off late.
Level 7
Subdue is a quest talent. It requires you hit at least 4 heroes with with a single Punish. If you think you can do that a few times then ENJOY the 80% slow that doesn't drop off.
Zealous Glare increases the duration of Shield Glare by .5 seconds, but for each basic attack on that target it can increase it up to 3 extra seconds.
Blessed Momentum decreases the cooldowns of your basic abilities for each basic attack you land on an enemy(Regardless of type) by .5 seconds, allowing for the spam of abilities. Always a good pick if you don't feel the others would work for you.
Level 13
Roar increases Punish damage, but it scales into late game since it's 25% all times, but if you hit at least two heroes it becomes 125%.
Holy Fury sets you on fire, dealing damage around you. Every hero you hit with Condemn causes the damage of this talent to increase by 40%, clearly stacking up to 5 times.
Blessed Hammer gives you an activate-able ability that causes a hammer to spin around you outward two times. Each time you hit an enemy hero with a Shield Glare you reduce the cooldown of this ability by 8 seconds.
Level 16
Holy Renewal causes your Shield Glare to heal you for each hero hit. It's pretty alright.
Fanaticism increases the duration of Iron Skin by 2 seconds, while also giving you up to 40% increased movement speed based upon damage you take while Iron Skin is active. The other two talents are much more useful.
Imposing Presence gives you an activate-able ability causes Johanna to roar out causing enemies to be slowed by 20%, while also reducing enemy attack speed by 50%. There is also a passive component that causes enemy attacks against you to have the activate-able effect...but passively
Level 20
Heaven's Fury allows Johanna to cast down blots of lightning for every enemy under her while she is using Falling Sword. Each bolt deals deals damage and reduces the cooldown of Falling Sword by 3 seconds for each enemy hit, Neutrals included.
Radiating Path increases the stun duration of Blessed Shield and increases the number of targets to 5 total.
Indestructible causes you, upon taking fatal damage, to be IMMEDIATELY shielded for 100% of your maximum HP for 4 seconds, allowing for clutch plays, or to get away from your enemies.
Blinded by the Light Shields all allies in the area for 25% of their maximum HP, and while useful...advise against this.
So let's Talk Top
So, I'm not gonna lie...This really isn't a BIG guide, more or less a Talent build that seemed to work out quite well in the past, so I thought I would rework it to make it more modern. It's been a long time coming, but I'm happy I finally got around to finishing it. I'm still not updating the threats right now, but I might...soonish.
Thanks guys for everyone who's been coming back to read this BLANK guide for the past few months. It'll probably be not as exciting, but hey, that's me.
Changelog will be updated, and again, thank you for your patience, and I will see you all on the Flipside..maybe with a video. I will be ATTEMPTING to update with actually helpful information at SOMe point, but for now, I'm keeping it simple.
Changelog and other notes Top
Remember this point of this guide is to give you another way of looking at this hero, or any hero I make a guide for in the future.
If you want to see some of these guides in action I usually stream them on my stream...so yea, this is some shameless self promotion, but you can follow me on
Twitch.tv/kalcour and if you want to comment to me directly on the guide you can shoot me a friend request on battlenet @ Kalcour#1211.
Alright guys, mess around with these abilities until you find what you like, what you see at the top if what my go to is, you don't have to STICK to that like it's all you have to do, it's again, what I prefer to go to when it comes to this guide. So as always, Good Luck, and have fun.
Change(September 8): Added Leoric and Kharazim to the list
Change/update(January 17): Added Lunara and Greymane to the Threat List. Haven't been really playing HotS recently due to some scheduling issues, so I haven't had the time to update this. Not a lot of changes have been made to Johanna, so there's not really alot to update. Other than that, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a great new years.
Change (February 3): Added Li-Ming to the Threat list.
Change (March 3): Added Xul to Threats, fixed link to Stream.
Change (May 4th): Added Tracer and Dehaka to Threats, added minor Context to each of the "Don't take these" talents to help improve context of why I dislike certain talents. Will be fixing content later, but for now, enjoy my reasoning. Also, I've been off the HotS wagon for a while due to the Blizzard BS with Nostralius, but will be returning sooner or later. I should also be streaming at SOME point in the future. Thanks and have a good day.
Change [MINOR] (May 5th): Revenge of the 5th with color coding the
*Context*.
Change (August 29th): Added a few new threats just to update the guide. No changes actually needed...I'm still alive.
Update (October 21st): Fixed up the guide, added the newest threats.
Update (November 6th): Changed the skills to icons, made the sizes bigger, added names next to the skills. Enjoy your Thanksgivings folks (If you're into that kind of thing). Anyway, I've been thinking of ways to change this guide up ever since the changes to Regen master happened, and I figure at this point, it's just a good guide to follow and build upon. The general structure is there, Get as much HP regen as you can and just outheal all their damage. Other than that, she's just a tank, do with that what you will. Also, I learned how to ACTUALLY make icons..So...That's a thing
Update (November 15th): Added Lo'Gash...No really, that's all I did.
Update (December 14th): Added Swagnaros
Update (January 5th): Added Zul'jin
Update (January 26th): Added Valeera, changed the title. *
Insight* So...I changed the title because the fundamental guide I made over a year ago has since been changed from "An Alternative way to play" which was just an unconventional yet functional guide...but now...Now it's just a guide...that's pretty meta, so I've changed the title to better match the feel of the guide overall. I appreciate the support you guys have given me, and I still enjoy updating the guide as needed, but I've mostly just been adding threats and fixing up the areas that need fixing. So thank you all, and I may or may not retire the guide here in the next few weeks. That or rework the guide to make it something else. So thanks everyone and have a good day/night/day.
Update (October 30, SPOOKY): Fixed the talents.
Update (July-December 3rd): Complete Rework
Update (July 22nd): Added my final message.
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